


the weakest link

by lawnclippings



Category: Spy School Series - Stuart Gibbs
Genre: Catherine has one line, Character Study, Ficlet, Gen, Light Angst, i guess, my Alexander kinnie brain went woah!!, ssr hurt me and this specific part made me go :0
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:34:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27169391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lawnclippings/pseuds/lawnclippings
Summary: [Cyrus had been smiling for exactly a week after Alexander’s grades had begun to look up- and the week after, he’d begun wearing the darkest frown anyone had ever seen when he was around his son. ]———AKA I take a half comic relief character and make his backstory sad and ironic because I feel like it
Comments: 13
Kudos: 8





	the weakest link

**Author's Note:**

> yeah, I’m an Alexander kinnie, so what,, it’s not like he’s inadvertently killed his coworkers and stole their work or anything..,
> 
> but seriously, I really like Alexander’s character and I think the concept of a legacy and trying so hard to keep up with the legacy that you basically become the bad guy to so many people is,,.,, bark bark grrrr I go FERAL..,,
> 
> anyway!!!!! i didn’t read the books to find these quotes so they’re probably a bit wrong (except for maybe Alex’s because I kid you not I know all of his spy camp dialogue. all of it) forgive me..,
> 
> ANYWAY on to the actual fic 💔

One - “ Nothing I ever did was good enough for him. ”

“You call that fighting?” Cyrus Hale, the CIA’s greatest spy, snarled. “My grandmother could fight better than you- after she broke her legs.”

“‘M sorry- I’m trying! I swear!” Alexander Hale, the CIA’s newest recruit, said. 

It was pathetic, really. How could a fourteen year old Hale not hit a bullseye on a simple target? At fourteen, Cyrus could have hit six bullseyes in a row- while on horseback. Was Alexander even trying? 

“You’re not,” Cyrus said, “because you clearly don’t have any grasp whatsoever on what I’ve been teaching you for the past thirty minutes.” He snatched the gun out of Alexander’s hands before the boy could react, throwing it onto a nearby table. “It seems like you don’t have a grasp on anything, period.”

The boy- steel-blue colored eyes, dark brown hair- stared at his father- gray colored eyes, graying hair- not saying anything. Cyrus felt something inside of him crack then. What was the point of teaching him if he wasn’t going to learn it? What was the point of keeping the weak link in the Hale family chain around, anyway? What was the point?

Alexander didn’t say anything. Cyrus sighed. He turned, picked the gun off of the table, and shoved it back into his son’s hands. 

“Try again. Don’t stop until you hit the center.”

Two - “ I found out something I was good at. Cheating.”

Sixteen year old Alexander Hale was doing fairly well in the CIA Academy of Espionage. 

It wasn’t like he was doing phenomenally well- he was still doing average, and average wasn’t what a legacy should have been- but he wasn’t failing. That was a start. 

It was kind of like a real life underdog story. He’d been the laughingstock of the entire school during his first year. The kid that only got in because he was a legacy- and he couldn’t even keep up with his title anyway. Why would they let someone like him in?

It had been like that his whole first year. But then, during his second year, things had started to change. His grades, which had cemented him as a solid D minus student, made a slow increase. Then they went up faster. Then they shot up- up to the place where the teachers didn’t have to threaten Alexander with expulsion after every exam. 

He was finally starting to live up to his legacy title. 

There were still some weird things that other students noticed, though. Like how his father, Cyrus, had been smiling for exactly a week after Alexander’s grades had begun to look up- and the week after, he’d begun wearing the darkest frown anyone had ever seen when he was around his son. 

The students chalked this up to feeling jealous that his son was going to surpass him as the CIA’s greatest spy. 

They were so caught up in the awe of being in the prescience of a great spy in the making that they never noticed when their homework went missing. 

Three - “ You mean they’re direct descendants of the bad spy in the family?”

“ Nathan Hale is only known because he got caught, yes?”

Ben Ripley, at that moment, had a little realization. 

“So Alexander, Cyrus and Erica are direct descendants of the bad spy in the family?”

Catherine have a little smile. “Well, yes, but ancestry doesn’t mean anything!”

It didn’t mean anything. That was true. Most students at the academy didn’t have any sort of legacy to look up to or be compared against. 

But it meant something, still. Ben could feel it. 

It meant that all along, Alexander Hale had been the only one in his family to correctly keep up the legacy. 

It was funny how things worked out. Now, that didn’t mean that it was a good legacy to keep up, but it was still a pretty ironic thing. From what he’d heard, Alexander had spent quite a long time trying to impress his family. He’d destroyed so many careers just so that he could feel like he’d belong in his family tree. And in the end, the legacy he’d been trying to adhere to was wrong from the start. 

Cyrus would sure get a kick out of this. 

**Author's Note:**

> and that’s it I hope u liked it 🐌  
> im like the only Alex fan in this fandom and that says a lot a theres like two people and an empty bag of chips here 💔
> 
> but anyways bye!! see u when I get motivation to post again !!!!


End file.
